Time Travel?

Today in Church, we had a guest speaker, John Partington. He is the main leader of the AOG denomination our church is a part of, and I usually enjoy when he preaches. Not that I didn't today. But maybe because of what has been happening recently, I found it a lot more challenging today.

Today he spoke on nothing being impossible for God, and he used the example of Abraham and Sarah. When he was 99, Abraham had a visit from God to say, "Hey, Abraham, you're going to be a dad, even though Sara is 90 and you've not been able to have kids yet." Now as someone who has been TTC for a while, this is one of those "fall back" stories I like to go to... that if God can make it possible for Sarah in her 90's to have a baby, then it's not impossible for Him to create life in my 30-something body! Like seriously, I have 60 years on her!

But I know there are times in our journey when it doesn't seem like nothing is impossible, and I'm sure Sarah would have prayed and prayed and pleaded over those 90 years, to have reached the point where she thought, "This is just too difficult, even for God to do."

John said something like, "God always hears our prayers" and my internal dialogue replied to him, "Except when He doesn't" because let's be real there are times when anyone of us can feel that not quite everything is possible for God. It seems like we have flummoxed God with what we are asking Him for.... or maybe that our voice has become lost in the bigger problems of the world we live in. I can understand why Sarah laughed when she heard she was going to have a baby. Especially if she had gone through menopause and had forgotten about wanting to be a mother after all those years.... How long did women remain fertile for back in the day??? Especially as women married much younger then than we do today.

But, as I reflect on this, and it ties in significantly with the Woman to Woman conference I attended last weekend (read more here), I have to find peace in the conclusion, that in spite of how I feel about not having a Baby yet, in spite of how things look, in spite of how many times I pray, God is the only One I can really trust with my life and the road He has me on. I'm not dead yet, which means He still has a plan for my life. And although I feel as though He has forgotten about me, or isn't listening to me, or I have suddenly created this impossible scenario (for God?? Really?? Do I think I am THAT grandiose??? To create an impossibility for the Creator of the world, and of my little life???), that somewhere in it all, I can find peace that God is working things out around me. 

I love to ask questions, and one of the "silly" questions which often gets put "out there" is, "What superpower would you most like to have. I would love to travel through time. I would love to go back in time to the newly-wed Sarah who was watching her friends and sisters having children, and wrestling with why she wasn't having the baby she should be able to conceive, and reassure her, "Hey, Sarah, it's OK.... when you're 90, you're going to be a mum." But it probably wouldn't have been much comfort to the young 20 year old girl. She might have laughed then.... a woman in her nineties becoming a mother..... That's a tabloid headline!! In the same way, I'd also like to travel forward in my own life and find out what happens five years from now, ten years from now. Do I have children? Does God have something else planned?? Does it get any easier to handle???

But I can't travel through time, so I have to keep focussed on the One Who is above and beyond time, and know that whatever happens, He is right with me, reassuring me, and speaking His words of life into my heart. So maybe.... nothing is impossible for God, even changing my heart to line up with His plan for me.


Father God, I'm sorry for when I doubt You, or doubt what You say in Your Word. It's hard to believe when I sometimes expect You to answer my prayers in my way at my time. I don't mean to try to lead You, I need to allow You to lead me. Help me when I start to try to walk in front of You, but Lord.... help me when I am afraid to lean on You and know You are by my side, even if things don't seem to be going my way. In Jesus' name.

Take Back What Was Stolen

I was reminiscing with my little brother about a song we used to love to sing and shout and dance around to... usually when we were in the car... much to the amusement of other drivers!

The song formed part of a medley of songs, titled, "Enemy's Camp / Look What the Lord Has Done!" (listen here) and we used to turn up loud and proclaim the words for our own lives. 

As I was listening to it tonight, I suddenly had a sense of God's voice saying that someone needed to proclaim this over their situation, relating to your journey through fertility:

The difficulties you face may have been caused by a sexually transmitted disease, as a result of life choices you have made... this is NOT God's punishment, take back what the enemy has stolen from you. It may be caused by a hereditary illness passed on from the generations before, this is NOT God's plan, take back what the enemy has stolen from you. It may be caused by a build up of toxins in your body, like Endometriosis or PCOS, God is your healing, take back what the enemy has stolen.

Whatever the reason for our battle to conceive, the enemy is trying to steal your hope, your peace, your joy, your sense of excitement for life - do not let him, take back what he has stolen. God gave them to YOU. They are freely available for you through Yeshua. Don't let the enemy steal what God has placed in your life - take back what he has stolen, proclaim the truth,  stomp around if you have to, and celebrate that one day, you WILL testify "Look What the Lord Has Done"!!!!

More Lessons From Scripture: Husbands and Wives

I love Hubby to pieces, but at the moment, he is struggling in his walk with the Lord, to the point where to even pray for me when I ask him, he doesn't feel he is in a place to do that. This makes it really difficult for me, as I read time-and-time again of Christian couples who prayed together and saw God answer their prayers for a child.

I totally believe that God wants this for Christian marriages. I fully believe that a Christ-centered marriage has a strength and a depth between a husband and wife, which other couples miss. And so for me to be in this situation - I have found this Journey for Bubba that much harder. All I would like, is for Hubby and I to pray together. 

This last Sunday, though, God spoke to me so clearly about this situation, that He has set at ease the stress and pressure I have been feeling in my heart. He is so awesome like that. For a while, because I have been praying for Hubby, and seeing only slight glimpses of the answer I desperately seek, it becomes easy to think that God isn't listening. But He sent two women to speak to me at Church - one had a vision of me seeing my prayers added to the bowl of incense which is poured out before the throne of the Lord, as described in Revelation 5:8: ...and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints, and Revelation 8:3-4: He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand. The second lady spoke of how the Lord had placed a connection in her spirit to pray for me for breakthrough. She has offered to meet with me specifically to pray for the strongholds which are preventing the breakthrough I need, although she has no idea what these are. I immediately knew this was relating to Hubby, and also for my Journey for Bubba. 

But even before these two women spoke to me, God had already spoken His encouragement to me through my study of the women of the Bible who struggled to conceive. 

So keeping in mind the fact that I felt as though I don't have the prayerful support of Hubby, and have felt as though I was trying to stand strong and fight this battle alone... I started to remind God of how important husbands were to the "barren" women in the Bible (you know them ones when you try to tell God about His own story!):

• Sarah, as the woman married to Abraham, was told via her husband she would conceive - You, Lord, spoke to Abraham FIRST... she overheard You and laughed!
• Rebekkah conceived after her husband pleaded with You in prayer on her behalf. I don't know what she may or may not have said to him but You Lord, listened to her husband and she conceived.
• Then Elizabeth wasn't even privy to the conversation You had with her husband, Zachariah because he was in the Most Holy Place and then was struck dumb and couldn't relate any of what You, Lord, had told him! 

You see, God, do You see how important it is for the husband to be in the journey with his wife! Do You see what You have done through these marriages, because I do - I see exactly how important it is for the wife to have the spiritual support of her husband!!

Point made, rant over!!!!

The Lord, graciously and calmly, pointed me to Hannah:

• She spoke to the Lord DIRECTLY as she prayed ON HER OWN at the Temple. Elkanah was a Godly man, in that he made the annual pilgrimages to the Temple in Jerusalem when required, providing offering for himself and his family, but in response to Hannah's heart-cry, he gave her a very human - very manly - response, when he said to his wife "Am I not better to you than 10 sons" (1 Samuel:1:8). He didn't connect with her on a spiritual level, he didn't appear to have the same level of faith in God's healing power to pray and intercede on Hannah's behalf or to join Hannah when she went to the Temple to pray. Hannah had to deal with her anguish, her grief alone. She knew the only way to be heard, as she desired to have a child of her own, was to seek the Lord directly, which is when we read of the vow she made to God. She was alone in this moment. Yet the Lord was so close to her in that moment. 
• The other woman was Rachel. She was the wife of Jacob, who became the Father of twelve sons, the one whom the nation of Israel is named after. But at the time, she was barren, regardless of how much she tried to have a child, and she became human in her responses, saying to her husband, "give me a child or else I will die" (Genesis 30:1). We read of poor Rachel's plight as she watches her maid, her rival-wife-sister, her sister's maid all conceiving lots of wonderful healthy babies for her husband, Jacob. we can share her anguish as child 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11 is born, and each time, she is still waiting, still childless, still barren. We don't know how Jacob supported his wife through this, we don't know if he interceded on her behalf. We know he got angry with her (Genesis 30:2), maybe felt helpless on her behalf? But we do know that Rachel prayed. Although we don't know the exact words she spoke, as with Hannah, we do know that God listened to HER, remembered HER and opened her womb (Genesis 30:22).

Point made, I was silenced!

There may be wives out there who don't have the full spiritual support of their husbands, not just temporarily, but on a permanent basis, as there are women who are married to non-Christian men. Be encouraged that God is as tuned in to your prayers, ad He is to the prayers of a Christian husband, or to the prayers of a husband and wife standing together in prayer. I would encourage you to ask the Lord to bring you a prayer partner who will pray with you for the child you long to conceive, because I know that there is strength in praying with someone, "...if two of you agree on earth, concerning anything they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven" (Matthew 18:19). But don't lose heart that your prayers alone are in vain, because the Lord has promised to hear those who call on His name. And just as He heard the prayers of Rachel and Hannah - He hears your prayers too. Be encouraged, and don't give up. The journey isn't over yet, you are not barren, you are fruitful and one day, the Lord will bring to bear the fruit of your womb. The fruit of my womb. 

The Highs and Lows of Subfertility

When I was younger, I used to love going to the park with my family. Me and my brothers would race to the swings, and compete to see who could swing the highest, or we'd twirl the swings and see who could go the fastest. The swings were my favourite thing in the park.

Hubby and I picked up my gorgeous Step-son and he wanted to go to the park after tea. So we did. The three of us jumped on the swings, and I tried to contain my need to go higher because at seven, he can't quite manage to keep up with me. He then became a bit fearful and asked his Daddy to take him on the "baby" swings, so he could be pushed even higher in the security of the structure of the baby swings.

As I watched them from a distance, over on the big swings, father and son, laughing and giggling, with the occasional cry of "Higher Daddy, push me higher!" I wondered what it would be like to introduce my own child for the first time to the highs and lows of the swing. I smiled as a watched them, and drifted off into the thoughts of my imagination, smiling as I "saw" my own little one, wrapped up against the elements of a cold winter afternoon, giggling with glee at the sensation which comes from the swing.

It doesn't happen very often now that I am well and truly travelling on this path of subfertility, but now and again I allow myself to dream about the future I long for. I know there are no guarantees that the dreams will come true, but I hold on, in faith that what I long for - to be Bubba's Mumma - the Lord will grant to me. After all, faith is the substance of the things we hope for. I my be well into my thirties, but I've not given up on the hope that one day, the Lord will grant Bubba to me. He knows the plans He has both for me, as a hopeful Mumma, and for the Bubba He would entrust to my care.


Father God, when my faith becomes weak, I pray you would grant me the hope to keep it alive, that you would never allow faith for Bubba to completely dissipate - even in those times in the cycle when it becomes hard to see the light for the grief of another month gone, another egg lost, another failed attempt to conceive. Lord Jesus, thank You that You are seated at the side of the Father, where You intercede... even for me and the longings of my heart.